Increasing a client, customer or patient base for an existing provider of professional services (medical, legal, accounting, etc.) is difficult. Significant amounts of resources are spent on advertising and other activities to try and entice new clients, customers or patients to make appointments for professional services.
There have been attempts to solve some of the problems associated with electronic referrals. For example, U.S. Published Application No. 20080052110A1 published by Ruggirello teaches “A referral service system includes a user interface receiving, at a service location of a service provider, information identifying a referred entity. The service provider is a specialist or general practitioner in a professional field or trade that involves routinely rendering non-referral related services to persons seeking those services, and routinely evaluating the persons to determine need for referral to another service provider. A referral record output module generates a referral record and electronically communicates the referral record to a referee, wherein the referral record includes at least information identifying a referrer, the information identifying the referred entity, and information identifying the referee. A referee location indication module generates an indication of a location of the referee at which the referred entity can obtain services provided by the referee, and communicates the indication of the location of the referee to the referred entity.”
U.S. Published Application No. 20070255586A1 published by Green teaches “An exemplary method for determining the appropriateness of service provider claims for payment includes scheduling appointments for patients with service providers based on requests for services, generating appointment information corresponding to each of the scheduled appointments, and capturing service information corresponding to claims received from the service providers for payment of charges associated with services rendered by the service providers to the patients. The method further includes automatically identifying candidate appointments that correspond to a particular received claim based on a degree of similarity between the service information associated with the particular received claim and the appointment information associated with the scheduled appointments. Additionally, the method includes flagging the particular received claim for resolution when none of the candidate appointments corresponds to the particular received claim, and presenting the particular received claim for payment when at least one of the candidate appointments corresponds to the particular received claim.
U.S. Published Application No. 20070083403A1 published by Baldwin teaches” A referral information communication and management method, apparatus and system, with related computer-readable media, signals, data-structures and program codes, involving, in response to signals received from respective client computers associated with a referrer and referee of a referral from the referrer to the referee: (1) storing information pertaining to the referral in a database as a collection of linked information units, the information units including a referrer identifier identifying the referrer as originator of the information and a referee identifier identifying the referee as intended recipient of the information, the collection representing the referral and being accessible by the respective client computers; (2) identifying collections of information units that satisfy a criterion, and displaying corresponding identifications at one of the client computers; (3) causing at least one information unit in a collection corresponding to a displayed identification, to be displayed at the client computer; and (4) causing at least one information unit in a collection corresponding to a displayed identification, to be modified.”
U.S. Published Application No. 20050119937A1 published by Estes teaches “A method and system for generating and managing referrals is provided. Specifically, a system is provided for rewarding an originator of a referral which results in participation by the recipient of the referral in a defined event. The system employs various messaging events to encourage referrals from an originator of referrals and participation by the recipients of the referrals in a defined event.”
However, none of these solutions solves all of the problems associated with electronic referrals. Thus, it is desirable to use existing clients, customers or patients who are happy with a provider of a professional service to refer new clients, customers or patients.